Guardian:Driving east out of Aden, we were just a few hundred metres past the last army checkpoint when we saw the black al-Qaida flag. It flew from the top of a concrete building that had been part-demolished by shelling. From here into the interior, all signs of control by the government ofYemen disappeared. This is the region of newly proclaimed jihadi emirates in south Yemen that are run by affiliates of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemeni franchise of the movement founded by Osama bin Laden. AQAP has existed in this ragged, mountainous terrain for years, but in the last 12 months the jihadis have moved down from the high ground to take control of cities in the lowlands. They are in the process of setting up an al-Qaida utopia here, where security is provided by jihadis, justice follows sharia law and even the administration of electricity and water supplies is governed by the emir. Azzan, a market town in Shabwa province a year ago, is one of the three proclaimed Is…

Bloomberg:Barack Obama campaigned four years ago assailing President George W. Bush for wage losses suffered by the middle class. More than three years into Obama’s own presidency, those declines have only deepened. The rebound from the worst recession since the 1930s has generated relatively few of the moderately skilled jobs that once supported the middle class, tightening the financial squeeze on many Americans, even those who are employed. ...As a candidate in 2008, Obama blamed the reversals largely on the policies of Bush and other Republicans. He citedcensus figuresshowing that median income for working-age households -- those headed by someone younger than 65 -- had dropped more than $2,000 after inflation during the first seven years of Bush’s time in office.Yet real median household income in March was down $4,300 since Obama took office in January 2009 and down $2,900 since the June 2009 start of the economic recovery, according to an analysis of census data by Sentier Resear…

CNN:Editor's note: This story is based on internal al Qaeda documents, details of which were obtained by CNN. German cryptologists discovered hundreds of documents embedded inside a pornographic movie on a memory disk belonging to a suspected al Qaeda operative arrested in Berlin last year. The German newspaper Die Zeit was the first to report on the documents.
(CNN) -- On May 16 last year, a 22-year-old Austrian named Maqsood Lodin was being questioned by police in Berlin. He had recently returned from Pakistan via Budapest, Hungary, and then traveled overland to Germany. His interrogators were surprised to find that hidden in his underpants were a digital storage device and memory cards.
Buried inside them was a pornographic video called "Kick Ass" -- and a file marked "Sexy Tanja."
Several weeks later, after laborious efforts to crack a password and software to make the file almost invisible, German investigators discovered encoded inside the actual video…

Frank Gaffney:It turns out Team Obama suddenly wants the 2012 presidential campaign to be about foreign policy rather than the economy. Such a pivot might not be surprising given that by President Obama’s own test, he has not cut unemployment to the point where he deserves to be re-elected. The Democrats have - if anything - a weaker case for re-electing this president on national security grounds. The campaign ad they unveiled on Friday, timed to take credit for the liquidation ofOsama bin Laden on the first anniversary of that achievement, is a case in point. The video uses former President Bill Clinton to extol his successor’s role in the mission - and selectively quotes Republican nominee Mitt Romneyto suggest he would not have done the same thing. It is an act of desperation and contempt for the American people that, of all people, Mr. Clinton would be used in such a role. Let’s recall that during his presidency, he repeatedly declined to take out bin Laden. The former president is …

Toby Harnden: Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as ‘ammunition’ for his re-election campaign. The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled ‘One Chance’. In it President Bill Clinton is featured saying that Mr Obama took ‘the harder and the more honourable path’ in ordering that bin Laden be killed. The words ‘Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?’ are then displayed. Besides the ad, the White House is marking the first anniversary of the SEAL Team Six raid that killed bin Laden inside his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan with a series of briefings and an NBC interview in the Situation Room designed to highlight the ‘gutsy call’ made by the President.

Mr Obama used a news conference today to trumpet his personal role and imply that his Republican opponent Mr Romney, who in 2008 expressed reservations about the wisdom …

Jose Rodriquez:
As we mark the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, President Obama deserves credit for making the right choice on taking out Public Enemy No. 1.
But his administration never would have had the opportunity to do the right thing had it not been for some extraordinary work during the George W. Bush administration. Much of that work has been denigrated by Obama as unproductive and contrary to American principles.
He is wrong on both counts.
Shortly after bin Laden met his maker last spring, courtesy of U.S. Special Forces and intelligence, the administration proudly announced that when Obama took office, getting bin Laden was made a top priority. Many of us who served in senior counterterrorism positions in the Bush administration were left muttering: “Gee, why didn’t we think of that?”
The truth is that getting bin Laden was the top counterterrorism objective for U.S. intelligence since well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. This administration built on work pain…

NY Times:Combating Gangs With Green Beret TacticsTwo state troopers who were deployed in Iraq are using their counterinsurgency training for a program to combat drug and gang violence in Springfield, Mass.
It is not surprising that it is being used since many of the counterinsurgency tactics come from police work. Flooding the zone and making it impossible for dope dealers to sell on the streets is one example. The same principals of having an adequate force to space ratio and developing a report with people who live in the neighborhood makes it for difficult for the gang to move to contact without being discovered. Adding drones would add some persistence to the neighborhood over watch effort.

Marc Thiessen:It’s no coincidence that former CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez chose the one year anniversary of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden to finally break his silence. In his new memoir, Hard Measures, published today, Rodriguez reveals never before told details about how the questioning of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other CIA detainees made the bin Laden operation possible. Rodriguez reveals that it was KSM’s efforts to cover for bin Laden’s courier (who eventually led the CIA to bin Laden) that put the agency on his trail. He writes: The detainees were always trying to game the system. At one point we discovered that KSM was trying to signal his fellow detainees (using a method I cannot describe). In one message he instructed another detainee to “tell them nothing about the courier.” Short of giving us a name, you couldn’t ask for a better tipoff. This altered the agency to focus on uncovering bin Laden’s courier network. And when another senior al Qaeda leade…

CBS Detroit:BMW North America has probably had to deal with plenty of unusual lawsuits, but one filed last week may be a first — a California man says the seat on his motorcycle has given him an erection he just can’t shake. Henry Wolf of California is suing BMW America and aftermarket seatmaker Corbin-Pacific claiming his issue began after a four-hour ride on his 1993 BMW motorcycle, with a ridge like seat. Wolf is seeking compensation for lost wages, medical expenses, emotional distress and what he calls “general damage.” He said he’s had the erection non-stop for 20 months. And it comes with another side effect: The lawsuit says Wolf is “now is unable to engage in sexual activity, which is causing him substantial emotional and mental anguish.” ...
I think he will have a tough time selling jurors on the concept of having an erection makes him unable to have sex. It is certainly a counter intuitive argument.

Meanwhile, the Prairie Wife maybe sending me out to show for a BMW motorcycl…

Daniel Mitchell:When Hugo Chavez Battles Supply and Demand Curves, Guess What Happens?Haiti may be the poorest nation in the Americas. Cuba may have the dictator with the longest lifespan. But Venezuela arguably has the worst government.
It is a good piece with a chart that demonstrates how capitalism has made Chile prosperous while control freak socialism has made Venezuela poorer despite its oil resources.

Bill McMorris: President Barack Obama has made the auto bailout a centerpiece of his reelection campaign, using it to bash Republican nominee Mitt Romney. But the tactic may backfire as the general election heats up, public opinion surveys suggest. Recent polling from Rasmussen indicates that 59 percent view the bailouts as a “failure” and only 44 percent think the bailouts were “good for America.” The administration has already written off $7 billion in taxpayer losses in the American takeover of Chrysler and General Motors; those losses are expected to climb as high as $23 billion—27 percent of the $85 billion spent on the bailout. While the bailout is widely credited with saving the two companies, increasing taxpayer losses have made it nearly as unpopular in 2012 as it was when Obama was elected. More than half of Americans still disapprove of the auto bailout compared with 61 percent in 2008. That has not stopped Obama from using the bailout as a bludgeon against Romney, who backed ba…

Nile Gardiner:The magnificent operation by US Navy Seals to terminate Osama bin Laden in Pakistan a year ago this week united a divided nation, and brought with it a sense of closure for millions of Americans nearly a decade on from the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC. Thousands gathered in front of the White House as well as in Times Square to celebrate the news of bin Laden’s demise in the early hours of May 2, 2011. It was one of the most memorable events of the early 21st Century. As I wrote in a piece just after bin Laden’s death: The architect of 9/11, the murderer of thousands of innocents, and one of the most barbaric figures on the face of the earth has finally been taken out. This is a great day for the United States and for the free world, and a message to Islamist terrorists that the enemies of freedom will be hunted down. It is also a powerful reminder of the determination of the West to strike back against those who seek to threaten it. The killing of bin Laden …

Glenn Harlan Reynolds:With student-loan rates set to double, President Obama has been busy posing as Mr. Fixit. Too bad it’s just a pose. The country has a serious student-debt problem, and also a student-loan problem. But they’re two different things. The student-debt problem is that too many students are borrowing too much money to finance educations that won’t earn them enough to repay the loans. This leads to misery. A recent Wall Street Journal story noted that many students are postponing marriage, children and home-buying because of the difficulty — in some cases, the impossibility — of keeping up student-loan payments.
This is bad for them and the economy, because they won’t be available to soak up the excess houses built during the housing bubble, which also was fueled by cheap government loans.
If they postpone having kids, fewer taxpayers will exist to fund Social Security and other programs in a few decades.
If these younger people had gone into debt flipping houses in 2005…

Seth Jones:A year after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden, most policy makers and pundits believe al Qaeda is near collapse. "Another nail in the coffin," one senior U.S. official told me after the death of an al Qaeda operative in Pakistan last month from a U.S. drone strike. In testimony before the Senate in February, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the core al Qaeda is likely becoming of "symbolic importance." This conclusion is presumptuous. As the administration looks eastward—a strategy that incorporates China's rise—underestimating al Qaeda would be a dangerous mistake. With a handful of regimes teetering from the Arab Spring, al Qaeda is pushing into the vacuum and riding a resurgent wave as its affiliates engage in a violent campaign of attacks across the Middle East and North Africa. Take a look around the Arab world. In Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has increased control in such provinces as Shabwah and Abyan, as the cen…

NY Times:Philippines Role May Expand as U.S. Adjusts Asia Strategy The American military presence in the Philippines has grown recently amid fear of a rising China, and top American and Philippine officials are meeting to discuss further buildup.
There is genuine concern in the Philippines about the attempt by China to claim mineral rights in Philippine territory. The country asked the US military to give up its bases in the Philippines, but now sees US troops as an advantage in dealing with the China threat as well as the threat from militant Islamist in the south. While the US is withdrawing troops from Okinawa they are moving troops to Guam and other Asian outpost as well as Australia to counter the Chinese threat.

Steve Maley:Earlier this week, a two-year old YouTube video surfaced that floated some raw sewage in the Obama Administration’s energy punchbowl. In it, EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Almendariz, speaking to a group of Texas citizens, chuckles while comparing his agency’s environmental enforcement strategy vis-à-vis oil and gas operators to conquering Roman legionnaires’ strategy of random crucifixion. How quaint. So the Washington politicians did what politicians have done since Roman times: go into damage-control mode and attempt to distance themselves from the offending act. From theWashington Post: “Frankly, [the comments] were inflammatory but also wrong,” [EPA Administrator Lisa] Jackson said Friday when asked about a YouTube video discovered this week by Oklahoma Republican Sen. James M. Inhofe’s staff. “They don’t comport with either this administration’s policy on energy, our policy at EPA on environmental enforcement, nor do they comport with our record as well.” The offending c…

It is a good piece that shows how the American Lung Association has been taking stimulus grants and is using them to attack cities and industries the EPA is targeting. It should be noted that in a recent survey of the 10 most polluted cities, none were in Texas and the top five were in California. But the ALA says Houston is number eight on their list. Apparently they have become allies in the administration's war against Texas.

Walter Russell Mead:
...... somehow the reporters and editors who put together this long story on the implications of the Wisconsin recall for American politics now and in November failed to take note of one tiny little fact: Governor Walker is increasingly favored to win the June recall.Intrade, a site where people can in effect bet on political races, shows Walker with a 68.5 percent chance of re-election as of Sunday morning. (By contrast, President Obama has only a 59.7 percent shot at a second term.) Recent polls on the race show Walker ahead, though the race is close and volatile — and the dynamics may change once the Democrats pick a nominee. None of this appears in this article.Forget accusations of media bias and ideological agendas: this is a collapse of basic news judgment. On this issue at least, readers who rely on the New York Times to tell them what’s happening in the country — don’t know what’s happening in the country. They genuinely don’t know that in Wisconsin this…

Christian Adams:
PJ Media has obtained Facebook postings from Department of Justice Voting Section employees demonstrating contempt for the states for which they have oversight authority under the Voting Rights Act, including for voter ID approval. One such posting demonstrates open contempt for Mississippi, a state which recently passed a photo voter identification law. The same Voting Section employees have the power to approve the law.
On her Facebook page, Voting Section supervisory civil rights analyst Stephanie Celandine Gyamfi says about the people of Mississippi:
“Disgusting and shameful. Hey, that should replace the state motto: ‘Mississippi: Disgusting and Shameful’. . . forget the Magnolia State motto.”(Hans von Spakovsky also has this PJ Media story about Gyamfi: “The Justice Department Condones Perjury … Again“)The DOJ inspector general is conducting a wide-ranging investigation of Civil Rights Division employee bias against conservatives and other misconduct, including…